Commercial aircraft employ on-board weather radio detection and ranging (RADAR, or commonly referred to as “radar”) systems that detect weather phenomena and display such detected weather phenomena on a radar display. Existing on-board weather radar systems provide data on weather local to the aircraft, for example, weather ahead of the aircraft within the range of the weather radar unit. The weather information is displayed on a cockpit weather display. However, the weather data collected by an aircraft is available only to the particular aircraft experiencing the weather since the weather phenomena is detected by the on-board radar system. That is, weather information displayed on on-board cockpit radar displays is limited to the weather returns supplied by the on-board weather radar.
Various techniques have been proposed to provide an aircraft weather information system wherein the weather information is provided to the aircraft from various sources external to the aircraft. For example, the commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/907,730, published as U.S. 2002/0379072, entitled “AIRCRAFT WEATHER INFORMATION SYSTEM”, and the commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 8,829,922, issued on Dec. 7, 2004, entitled “SYNTHETIC AIRBORNE HAZARD DISPLAY”, both of which are incorporated herein by reference, propose providing weather related information detected by other aircraft and/or ground installations to the aircraft. Such supplemental information enhances the quality of weather information presented on the on-board cockpit radar displays.
Such supplemental weather information may be particularly beneficial if the weather information related to weather phenomena not readily detectable by the on-board radar system, such as turbulence. For example, a remote aircraft may pass through a region of turbulence that is not identified by the radar system. Acceleration sensors or motion sensors may identify the turbulence.
Information corresponding to the detected turbulence is communicated to a ground station or to other aircraft using a pilot report (PIREP). Pilots of other aircraft may learn of the turbulence from the PIREP.
However, legacy on-board radar systems cannot receive and display such supplemental weather information and present such on their on-board cockpit radar displays because they are not configured to receive and interpret PIREPs. To take advantage of such supplemental weather information, the legacy on-board radar system must be removed and replaced with a new on-board radar system having the capacity to receive and display such supplemental weather information. Refitting an aircraft with a new on-board radar system is very expensive and time consuming. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide legacy on-board radar systems with the ability to receive and present supplemental weather information on their on-board cockpit radar displays.
Further, aircraft personnel may use various types of portable auxiliary equipment. Such equipment may be commonly referred to as an “electronic flight bag” (EFB) or an “electronic travel bag” (ETB), generally referred to as EFBs herein. EFBs are connectable to aviation electronics of the airplane via ports, busses, or other suitable connectors. Some EFBs may include a display. At times, it may be desirable to have the EFB display present the supplemental weather information on its radar display.